


Burnt Marshmallows

by robindrake93



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [8]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Book 1: The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson), Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Light Angst, No anesthetic, One Shot, POV First Person, Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27444049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robindrake93/pseuds/robindrake93
Summary: Percy wears the flying shoes that Luke gave him and desperate measures are taken to make sure he isn't dragged into Tartarus.
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832509
Comments: 4
Kudos: 79





	Burnt Marshmallows

**Author's Note:**

> My discord asked for a happy ending (for once) so no one be alarmed. This one ends on a good note. 
> 
> Don't reupload/repost my fics.

“These shoes are driving me crazy,” Grover said, throwing his hands up. He sat down in the middle of the Asphodel Fields and pulled them off his hooves. Then he held them out to me. “We’re in the Underworld so if you want to fly, now is like your only chance.”

I took the shoes from Grover and slipped them onto my feet. One second they were too big and the next they fit perfectly. “Whoa! They’re my size.”

“Magic items change to fit the wearer,” Annabeth noted. “Don’t fly too long, Percy, we’re literally dying here.”

I was going to try to fly but Annabeth’s words stopped me. She was right. The longer we were here, the closer to death we became. I kept walking without trying out the shoes. 

After a few miles of walking, I decided that the shoes were pretty comfortable. We began to hear a familiar screech in the distance. Looming on the horizon was a palace of glittering black obsidian. Above the parapets swirled three dark batlike creatures: the Furies. I got the feeling they were waiting for us. 

“I suppose it’s too late to turn back,” Grover said wistfully.

“We’ll be okay.” I tried to sound confident.

“Maybe we should search some of the other places first,” Grover suggested. “Like, Elysium, for instance…” 

“Come on, goat boy.” Annabeth grabbed his arm. 

I yelped. My sneakers sprouted wings and my legs shot forward, pulling me away from Annabeth and Grover. I landed flat on my back in the grass. 

“Percy,” Annabeth chided. “Stop messing around.”

“But I didn’t —“ 

I yelped again. My shoes were flapping like crazy now. They levitated off the ground and started dragging me away from them. _“Maia!”_ I shouted. The magic word seemed to have no effect. “ _Maia!_ Help me!”

Annabeth made a grab for my hand.

It was too late. I was skidding downhill like a bobsled, picking up speed. My shirt rode up and my back got scratched up. 

They ran after me.

“Untie the shoes!” Annabeth shouted.

It was a smart idea. Except I couldn’t sit up and grab the laces. They stayed out of my reach, made my legs kick wildly out of the way. I was dragged between the legs of chattering spirits, headed straight for the gates of Hades’ palace. 

But then, the shoes veered sharply to the right and dragged me in the opposite direction. My hips felt like they were going to be pulled out of their sockets. The slope got steeper. I picked up speed. 

Annabeth and Grover were sprinting to keep up. 

The cavern walls narrowed on either side and I realized I’d entered some kind of tunnel. No black grass or trees now, just rock underfoot and the dim light of the stalactites above. My back was shredded by the rocks I was dragged across. 

“Percy!” Grover yelled, his voice echoing. “Hold onto something!”

I scrabbled at the gravel, but there was nothing big enough to slow me down. The tunnel got darker and colder. The hairs on my arms bristled. It smelled evil down here. Then I saw what was ahead of me and my heart skipped a beat. 

The tunnel widened into a huge dark cavern, and in the middle was a chasm the size of a city block. 

I was sliding straight toward the edge. “Help me! Help me! Help me!” I yelled at my friends. I clawed at the ground and ripped out a nail but barely noticed. The winged shoes kept dragging me toward the pit. It didn’t look like Annabeth and Grover could get to me in time. I didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not here. _Gods, please help me. Please._

I was ten feet from the edge of the pit when I grabbed onto a big rock. I held onto it like an anchor, with both hands wrapped around it. The winged shoes were pulling so hard it felt like they might rip off my feet. 

Annabeth and Grover caught up to me. They managed to wrangle off one shoe, but not before I broke Annabeth’s nose with an accidental kick to the face. 

She yelped in pain. 

They couldn’t hold my other leg still enough to untie the laces. The shoe kept kicking them in the heads. To make matters worse, being near the pit was like getting sucked into a whirlpool. It wanted us to fall into it, it tried to pull us in with its gravity. 

“I’m slipping!” I cried. My hands were bloody and sweaty from the ride down here and I was losing my grip on the rock. 

“This isn’t working!” Grover yelled. His lip was busted, blood trickling down his wavering chin and one eye swollen. 

Annabeth didn’t look any better. The front of her shirt was stained with blood from her broken nose. Her gray eyes were wide and calculating. She lunged for my hip and dug Riptide out of my pocket. 

A chill went down my spine at the sight of my sword in her hands. What was she going to do with it? 

“Hold his leg down, Grover!” Annabeth yelled. 

I knew what she was going to do. My gut twisted unpleasantly. “No! No!” 

Grover couldn’t hold my leg down but in the end it didn’t matter.

All Annabeth needed was an opening, nineteen seconds for a good shot. She saw her chance while the winged sneaker was straining towards the pit. 

It happened so quickly that it took my brain a few seconds to register the pain even though I’d watched her cut off my foot. I couldn’t speak, could barely breathe as my body tried to process the sudden loss of a limb. 

The sneaker with my foot in it kicked Annabeth and Grover in their heads. Blood stained the gray fabric and speckled the wings. Then it went over the edge of the pit and into the chasm.

Annabeth and Grover grabbed me by my arms and hauled me farther up the hill, where the pull from the pit was weaker. 

I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes to hold in the tears but it was no good. Nothing had ever hurt so much and to make matters worse, I was _exhausted._

“Okay,” Annabeth said and her voice shook. “Water. We need to clean it out before we give him ambrosia.” She uncapped a water bottle and poured it’s contents onto the stump where my foot used to be. 

It didn’t hurt but it also didn’t feel great. I moved my hands from my face to look and immediately regretted it. I thunked my head against the black rocks and groaned. “Will ambrosia fix it?” I asked.

Annabeth hesitated. She met Grover’s eye over my body. “N-not without the...the rest. But it’ll stop you from bleeding out.” 

Grover handed me a square of ambrosia. “Eat it all, Percy.”

I shoved the cake into my mouth. It didn’t taste good, or if it did then I didn’t notice. I chewed and swallowed large chunks of the cake. My foot stopped bleeding but it was still an open wound. 

Annabeth looked at the wound anxiously. 

Grover kept his eyes on my face. He looked a little green, like he might throw up. His eyes had gone slit-pupiled, goat style, the way they did whenever he was terrified. “We should give him more,” he said uncertainly. 

“He’ll burn up if we give him more,” Annabeth sounded unsure too. She dug through her backpack and produced a Waterland t-shirt. She wrapped it around my stump and tied it tightly. 

“Give me more,” I said through gritted teeth. 

Annabeth held her canteen to my lips. “Just a sip, Percy.” 

I drank a sip. It didn’t taste good either. Did something happen to my tastebuds? Regardless of the taste, I could feel my body healing. The pain slowly faded into nothing. 

We lay there on the rocks, exhausted. 

Annabeth capped Riptide and handed it to me. 

I stuck the pen back in my pocket. “We need to get out of here,” I said. “This place is evil.”

“It’s the place from your dream, isn’t it?” Annabeth asked. She pushed herself into a sitting position with a tired groan. 

I nodded and sat up too. “Grover, you okay?”

Grover lay in silence for a few moments before he too sat up. He looked at me with sad, watery eyes. “Fine,” he muttered. Then he wailed. “I-I’m so sorry, Percy. I didn’t know the shoes would do that!”

I patted his shoulder and tried to suppress my emotions. “I mean, kids of Poseidon aren’t supposed to fly for a reason, right?” 

Annabeth frowned. “You think Zeus was punishing you? But you didn’t even fly.”

I shrugged. “But I was _thinking_ about it.” The back of my neck prickled. “We need to get out of here,” I said again. “Help me up.”

“Man, I wish we had my crutches,” Grover muttered as he got to his hooves. 

Grover and Annabeth each grabbed me under an arm and hauled me to my feet...foot. They each slipped an arm around my waist. 

I draped my arms over their shoulders. It was strange being unable to walk on my own and even stranger to know that if I let go, there was no left foot to help me balance. My backpack felt like it was full of rocks. “I’m sorry about your nose,” I said to Annabeth. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. 

Going up the steep hill seemed to take an eternity. By the time we reached the top, we were exhausted all over again. There were sweat stains in my shirt. 

“Wait,” I said. “Listen.” I heard something—a deep whisper in the darkness. 

Another few seconds, and Annabeth said, “Percy, this place—”

“Shh.” I cocked my head. 

The sound was getting louder, a muttering evil voice from far, far below us. Coming from the pit. 

Grover looked behind us nervously, “W-what’s that noise?”

Annabeth heard it took now. I could see it in her eyes. “Tartarus. The entrance to Tartarus.”

I could almost make out words now, ancient, ancient words, older even than Greek. As if… “Magic,” I said.

“We have to get out of here,” Annabeth said. 

Together, Grover and Annabeth helped me up the tunnel. Our legs wouldn’t move fast enough. My backpack weighed me down. The voice got louder and angrier behind us. We hobbled faster. 

A cold blast of wind pulled at our backs, as if the entire pit were inhaling. For a terrifying moment, I lost ground, my foot slipping in the gravel. If we’d been any close to the edge, we would’ve been sucked in. 

We kept struggling forward, and finally reached the top of the tunnel, where the cavern widened out into the Fields of Asphodel. The wind died. A wail of outrage shoved from deep in the tunnel. Something was not happy we’d gotten away. 

“What was that?” Grover panted, when we’d collapsed in the relative safety of a black poplar grove. “One of Hades’s pets?”

Annabeth and I looked at each other. I could tell she was nursing an idea, probably the same one she’d gotten during the taxi ride to L.A., but she was too scared to share it. That was enough to terrify me. 

We rested for a couple of minutes and then I said, “Let’s keep going.” 

Annabeth and Grover helped me up again. We were all trembling with exhaustion and fear. Whatever was in that pit was nobody’s pet. It was unspeakably old and powerful. Even Echidna hadn’t given me that feeling. I was almost relieved to turn my back on that tunnel and head towards the palace of Hades.

Almost. 

The meeting with Hades went about as bad as you’d expect. We barely made it out of there and I had to leave my mom behind. But the worst part about it was how Hades had looked at me calmly and said “I’ll be seeing you again, Percy Jackson, sooner rather than later.” And his gaze had dropped down to my missing left foot. 

After barely escaping the Underworld, we immediately ran into Ares. Of course, Ares wanted a fight. So I gave him one. 

I’m not sure how I managed to kick Ares’ butt with only one foot but I was pretty proud of myself for it. Even though I wouldn’t have been able to do it if we hadn’t been on the beach, with the ocean right there to help me. Ares seemed especially peeved that he’d lost to a “broken runt” as he’d so kindly called me. 

Meeting with dad and Zeus to return the master bolt was almost worse than losing my actual foot. The minor gods and goddesses whispered about me as I walked through Olympus with Grover and Annabeth on either side of me, holding me up. 

I lifted my chin and didn’t make eye contact with any of them, as though they were beneath me. What they couldn’t see was the lump of emotion in my throat, making it hard to breathe. 

Zeus looked at me with a satisfied sort of contempt, as though he were pleased to see me maimed. It definitely made me think that he was responsible for the shoes going crazy. 

Worse than Zeus, was the way my dad looked at me. His eyes were full of pity and regret. And then he actually said it, actually said that he regretted that I’d been born. Every word was a barb in my heart. 

I almost cried but that would just be the cherry on top of this crap sundae. 

After we were dismissed and back in the elevator, I did cry. The tears slid hot down my cheeks. I tried to hide my face from Annabeth and Grover but the elevator walls were reflective. They could see everything. 

“I’m sorry, Percy,” Annabeth said quietly.

“It’s okay, Percy,” Grover patted my back. “At least you’re alive.” His voice was really sad, eyes glazed like he was remembering someone else. 

“Let’s just get back to Camp,” I said without meeting their eyes. We weren’t too far from my mom’s apartment but I couldn’t imagine facing her. I didn’t want her to see what I’d gone through to get her back. She would never forgive me. 

We took a taxi straight back to Half-Blood Hill, assuring the driver that this was in fact where we wanted to be dropped off. As the three of us climbed the hill to Thalia’s pine tree, Annabeth said, “No heroes have returned to Half-Blood Hill alive since Luke.”

I didn’t feel like a hero. I just felt tired and scared for the future. 

We reached the crest of the hill and paused for breath, sitting on the grass beside the pine tree. From way up here, we had a perfect view of Camp. It was beautiful, made all the more so because it was the only safe place for demigods. 

I tucked my stump beneath my thigh so that I didn’t have to look at it. It didn’t hurt anymore because I’d been taking sips of nectar and the wound had closed to scar tissue. “How many demigods have survived after something like this?” I asked my friends. 

They looked at each other. “None, Percy,” Annabeth said with a sigh. “There aren’t any...disabled demigods.” 

“It’s hard enough to survive the teen years but adding something like that on top…” Grover trailed off. 

So what they were saying was that this was a death sentence. Would I have rather been dragged into Tartarus? No, not really. But I wasn’t happy with this either. 

The first person to spot us was Luke. He sprinted up the hill towards us. The smile he wore faded when he got closer. “What happened?” Luke knelt next to Annabeth and looked at her broken nose. “Is this broken? Who did it? Why didn’t you drink any nectar?” 

Annabeth let him turn her head this way and that as he examined her. “We had to give all of our nectar away.” 

Luke blinked. “Why?” He looked at Grover next, eyes skipping over me. “Did you guys get mugged?” 

Grover’s eye was still swollen shut and his lip was twice the size as normal, a scab running down it. “Um, not exactly,” Grover said nervously. “Percy…”

Finally, Luke looked at me. “You don’t look as bad as they are. But where are your shoes?” 

Silence met his question. 

I could only meet his eye for a few seconds at a time before dropping my gaze. I shifted my left leg so that the wrapped stump was in view. I pulled off the Waterland shirt and finally got a chance to read what was written on it: _I went to Waterland and all I got was this stupid shirt._

Luke watched me curiously and when the shirt was removed completely, his curiosity turned into shock. His face visibly paled at the sight of the stump where my foot used to be. The paling of his face made the scar stand out more.

I chose to look at the scar instead of Luke’s eyes. 

“What happened?” Luke asked softly, like he was talking to a frightened animal. 

Annabeth burst into tears then, which surprised all of us. She wrapped her arms around Luke’s neck and cried into his shoulder. Between sobs, Annabeth told Luke what had happened. 

Grover interjected sometimes to add something.

I stayed quiet. They seemed to have it covered. 

When Annabeth finished telling the story, Luke took a deep breath. “Alright,” he said slowly. “Alright, let's get you three to the Big House. Chiron can fix…” Luke’s eyes dropped down to my leg. “whatever he can.” 

Annabeth and Grover pulled themselves to their feet. They looked exhausted. Grover’s knees shook and Annabeth had bags beneath her eyes. 

Luke glanced at them and then at me. “You two go ahead. I’ll take care of Percy.” 

They hesitated, waited for my signal before heading down the hill. 

Luke and I were alone. 

Luke still knelt beside me. His shoulder was wet where Annabeth had cried on it. He tipped my chin up so that I had to look him in the eye. “Hey, Percy, are you okay?” 

A pathetic squeaking noise came from my throat, much to my utter embarrassment. “Oh, I’m great,” I said and couldn’t even make my tone sarcastic. “My foot is being eaten in Tartarus, my dad told me he regrets me being born, everyone is telling me that I’m going to die. Just...great.” My voice broke. A few hot tears slid down my cheeks. 

Luke wiped them away with his thumbs. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, Percy.” 

“Zeus looked at me like he was happy I was mutilated even though his plan to kill me failed,” I said and my voice sounded wet with emotion.

“Zeus?” Luke looked confused.

“Grover had been wearing the shoes until we got to the Underworld. But we thought that since it was Hades’ domain, I could wear them there. And then they tried to drag me into Tartarus.” 

A strange expression crossed Luke’s face. Then he said, “The Gods are pretty unfair.” 

I nodded agreement. A part of me had always known that but it didn’t really sink in until I lost my foot. 

“Do you mind if I carry you to the Big House?” Luke asked me. 

A part of me didn’t want Luke to carry me like a child but a bigger part really needed a hug and I didn’t want to ask for one. I shook my head. 

“Alright.” Luke slid my arms around his neck and guided my legs to wrap around his waist. 

I clung to him like a monkey. 

Luke held me up by my butt. Which made sense but also his hands were on my butt. My face turned so red that I hid it in Luke’s shoulder so that no one could see. 

Luke carried me down the hill towards the Big House. He didn’t seem at all bothered by my weight. 

“Luke,” I whispered. “Do you think I’m going to die?”

“Demigods live hard lives, Percy, and the odds aren’t stacked in your favor at all.” He paused outside of the Big House. No one else had noticed us yet. “But you’re a fighter. I think, if anyone can survive after losing a foot, it’s going to be you.” Luke carried me inside. 

Chiron’s face when he saw me crumpled with grief. He directed Luke to set me on a doctor’s table and then he nudged Luke out of the way so that he could tend to me. Except there was nothing to tend to. Chiron examined the stump and declared that it looked to be fully healed. 

Grover and Annabeth shared an examination table in the same room, sitting up and watching Chiron with hopeful expressions. The hope fell at Chiron’s announcement. 

Luke hovered nearby, anxiety written in the lines of his face. He wrung his hands together, kept shifting from foot to foot like he didn’t know what to do with himself. 

“Chiron,” Grover started nervously. “I can go get my crutches. They’ll probably be the right size for Percy.” The expression on his face was pleading, as though if he could just do this one thing for me then everything would be alright. 

Chiron stroked his beard. “Yes, I believe that will be the best solution for now.” 

Grover jumped down from the table he sat on. 

“Annabeth, please accompany Grover,” Chiron said. 

Annabeth looked equally upset and relieved to be given something to do. She hurried after Grover. 

“How are you feeling, Percy?” Chiron asked once they were gone. 

“Everyone thinks I’m going to die and I’m down to one foot,” I said bluntly. “So not that great.” 

Chiron nodded. He didn’t seem to know what to say. Finally, he turned to Luke. “Take Percy back to his cabin, please. I’ll tell Annabeth and Grover where to find you.” 

It was a short visit but it punctuated that there was nothing to be done about my foot. I let Luke pick me up and carry me to my cabin. Luke coaxed the door open with a whisper of magic and kicked it shut behind him. He took me to my bed - the only unmade one - and set me down on it. Then Luke kneeled in front of me. His hands rested on my knees. 

I searched his face, unsure of what I was looking for. But what I found there was better than looking at Chiron, Grover, or Annabeth. I put my hands over Luke’s hands. Then I remembered something. I shrugged out of my back pack and dug through it. I pulled out a keychain pocket knife that had Luke’s name burned into one side and Waterland’s logo burned into the other. “I got you a souvenir.” 

Luke took the small pocket knife and examined it. He tucked it into his pocket and smiled up at me. “I’ll help you, alright, Percy? Anything you need.” 

“Because I’m crippled?”

Luke shook his head. “Because I like you.” His hands were on my knees again, touch so hot I could feel it through my jeans. “I helped you before, didn’t I?” 

That was true. I nodded agreement. “I don’t want to face them.” Them being everyone else in the Camp. 

Luke flashed me a sympathetic look. “I know. But you won’t be alone.” 

I squeezed his hands. I was lucky to have Luke. 

We were the first heroes to make it back from a Quest alive but there wasn’t a big celebration. The other campers were excited to have us back right up until they noticed that the crutches Grover had lent me were because my foot was missing and not because I had an injury easily healed. 

Annabeth’s shroud was beautiful gray fabric with an owl embroidered on it. Obviously a lot of work had been put into it by her siblings. I wondered how long it took them to make it. 

I wondered who made my shroud. 

The Ares cabin looked a little apprehensive as they brought out my shroud. It was a plain white bedsheet with a smiley face spray painted on. The smiley face had X’d out eyes. Words like loser were scrawled in sharpie. 

Looking at this manifestation of how little the Camp thought of me made my eyes prickle with tears. But I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Burning the miserable shroud did little to make me feel better because I knew that they all hated me and now they were just waiting for a monster to pick me off. 

After the shrouds were burned, Annabeth and I were given laurel wreaths. Annabeth’s older brother, Malcolm, placed her laurel wreath upon her head. He looked like an exact copy of Annabeth except that his hair was shorter and he was taller. 

I didn’t have siblings, so Luke gifted me with mine. He looked grave as he placed the wreath upon my head. “You did good, Percy,” he said quietly, voice pitched so that only I could hear him. “You deserve more than this.” 

After the shroud burning and wreath giving, a feast was held in our honor. Feasts were one of the rare times that we could sit at whatever table we wanted to. Even though I wanted to sit with Luke, I stayed at the Poseidon table because some of the Hermes cabin were giving me dirty looks. 

It turned out that it didn’t matter. Luke came and sat down beside me, bringing two plates of food with him. He placed one in front of me. 

We were the only two at my table. I didn’t feel like a celebrated hero. 

Especially when I looked at the Athena table, where everyone was crowded around Annabeth. They flocked to the closest tables to be near to her and listened to her regale them with the story of our quest. Annabeth was soaking up the attention, of course. I didn’t really blame her, but it still hurt. She didn’t even come to sit next to me. 

Luke nudged me to get my attention. “So,” he said. “Tell me about the rest of your quest.” He looked at me like I was the only person here, the only one who mattered. It made me feel a little bit better. 

So I told him everything. 

On the Fourth of July, the whole Camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus’ kids, they weren’t going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. They’d anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles. 

Luke and I had spread a picnic blanket on the beach in a good spot to view the show. We were sitting with cans of coke between us, waiting for the show to begin. All around us other Campers were talking excitedly or horsing around but we just sat together, enjoying each other’s company. 

Grover came to say goodbye. His quest to get approved to look for Pan had been granted, though reluctantly. My foot was what made the Council of Cloven Elders reluctant to let him go, but there was also a rumor going around that Grover was bad luck and no one seemed to want him around Camp. The last demigod he’d been around died, and now one came back with a missing limb. The fact that I’d succeeded in my quest almost made up for it. 

Grover became teary-eyed as he said goodbye. “I’m off,” he said. “I just came to say...well, you know.” 

I tried to be happy for him but our friendship had been tainted by too many things; the secrets he’d kept from me at Yancy, my foot, how he wouldn’t stop looking at me like he expected me to keel over. “Good luck, man.” 

Luke echoed the sentiment. He patted Grover between his horns. 

Grover waved and gave me one last long look. Then he disappeared into the forest. I don’t think either of us were expecting to see each other again. 

Life in the Camp went on for everyone except me. For me, everything was put on hold on account of my missing foot. 

Annabeth’s lessons in ancient Greek had always been a little lacking because she was distracted and plotting but now she gave them to me even more half-heartedly. I knew it was because she was expecting me to kick the bucket and didn’t want to waste her time. 

I couldn’t participate in the foot races, I couldn’t do capture-the-flag, I couldn’t climb the rock wall. Archery was still difficult, even though they brought out a chair for me to sit on while I shot so that I could actually hold the bow. I didn’t try very hard at archery. Maybe a part of me believed that I really was going to die soon. 

The first time I tried to get into a canoe, I fell out of it and into the water. It was so embarrassing that I just sank to the bottom of the lake and hid with the naiads in shame until one of them told me that Luke was looking for me. 

When I surfaced, Luke stood on the dock with Silena by his side and my crutches in one hand. “There you are, Percy. We were looking for you,” Luke said. He held out a hand to me and hauled me up like I was a sack of flour. Luke set me on my foot and handed me my crutches. 

“Why?” I asked. I willed myself and my clothes dry. 

Silena smiled at me. Her smile was dazzling and made crinkles appear around her brown eyes. “We thought you might want to continue your riding lessons,” she explained. “There’s no reason that you can’t ride a pegasus with only one foot.” 

Her words should have cheered me up but they didn’t. I was afraid to fail again. At this point, I wasn’t good for much of anything except hobbling after everyone. 

“C’mon, Percy. You know you love flying,” Luke urged. He put a hand on my back. 

I looked between him and Silena. “Let’s get this over with, then,” I said reluctantly, sure that something else was going to go wrong. 

Silena led the way to the stables with me trailing after her. 

Luke kept pace with me, even though his legs were way longer and I was slowing him down. 

When we got to the stables, I realized that there was a problem I hadn’t considered before; I could understand horses. The pegasi weren’t shy about saying what they were thinking. It was some of what the other campers had said...but there was something else that they were talking about too. They were saying that my missing foot wasn’t as bad as what happened to the son of Hermes on his quest and something about ambrosia. 

We rode the pegasi bareback because they hated saddles and other riding gear. They usually liked to have their heads. It was a partnership. The other demigods had to work at it but I didn’t because I could communicate with the pegasus. Silena pondered for a moment then decided that the step stool wouldn’t be much help in this scenario. She coaxed a roan pegasus stallion to lie down and held my hand as I swung a leg over his back. 

“Are you coming, Luke?” I asked. 

Luke shook his head. He held my crutches and took a step back. “Flying isn’t my thing. You have fun, though.” 

It was disappointing that we couldn’t fly together, but I liked Silena too. She was a good instructor and she had a good sense of humor that I didn’t expect from the Aphrodite kids. In minutes, we were both mounted on pegasi and soaring through the air. For a while we rode close together, then Silena peeled off to do aerial tricks. 

“What happened to the son of Hermes?” I asked the young stallion as we soared through the sky. Now that Silena and Luke weren’t there, I felt like I could ask. 

The stallion’s ears flicked back. _“I was a yearling when they sent that one on his first quest.”_ They circled high above Luke’s head. _“But I remember because mom and I were flying over the Big House.”_

“Tell me what happened,” I urged. 

_“It isn’t pretty,”_ the stallion warned. _“Three demigods and three pegasi set off on a quest to the Gardens of Hesperides. Only Luke and Ambrosia returned. It was terrible. There was blood everywhere and monsters trying to get through the border. Ambrosia died the second his hooves touched the ground. They rolled hoof over head in the grass in front of the big house. Luke was thrown and almost crushed by Ambrosia. Chiron picked up all of Luke’s pieces and took it all into the Big House. It was months before we saw the son of Hermes again.”_

We circled the Big House and I tried to imagine what happened. “What do you mean, Luke’s pieces?” 

“The hundred-headed dragon cut him open and all of his insides fell out.”

I gagged at the very thought, at the horror of such an image. Luke didn’t show any sign of such an injury. He never let on at all. Suddenly I felt like I didn’t know him at all. What else was he hiding? 

It was nice to ride again, to do something again. Silena mostly left me alone while I was in the air, watching me from a distance. When I signed to her that I was ready to stop riding, Silena flew in close enough that our pegasi’s wingtips touched as they flew. “We can fly again tomorrow if you want,” Silena offered. 

I nodded. “Yeah. I’d like that.” As good as I felt about flying, the mystery of Luke was bothering me. Somehow, I wanted to find out exactly what happened to him and why. The stallion landed on the ground and cantered up to Luke. I swung my leg over.

Luke caught me before I hit the ground. He smiled at me but there was a tightness in his expression. “Have a good ride?” 

“It was fun,” I said. My hands were on his broad shoulders. I found myself squeezing, trying to feel scarred skin through the fabric of his t-shirt. “Sorry,” I said with a small smile. “My legs feel like jello.” 

Luke only laughed. He slid an arm around my waist and supported me as we walked back to the stables for my crutches. 

Luke had taken to doing everything with me, oftentimes abandoning his own cabin to spend time with me. “There’s enough of them that they can look after themselves,” Luke explained when I asked. His brother Travis was in charge, the elder of the two Stolls’. 

“I don’t know why Luke bothers with that cripple,” Miranda Gardiner said as we passed the Demeter cabin. “He’s just going to die soon.” 

“Hold on a minute,” Luke said to me. Then he turned around and almost gracefully punched Miranda in the face. His whole body was calm, relaxed. But his eyes were twin fires of pure rage. “Have something to say, Miranda?” Luke asked, voice pitched sweet and calm. 

Miranda held her nose, from which blood was pouring out. She stared at Luke with wide, wide brown eyes. Her gaze flicked to me, then back to him. She shook her head. 

Everyone had gone completely silent, watching. 

“Good.” Luke rejoined me and we continued on our walk. 

Most people would be upset or terrified that their friend just punched someone in the face. I couldn’t help but be impressed and grateful. I’ve spent my whole life sticking up for other people, getting into fights to protect other people. It felt nice to have someone do the same for me. 

After we were out of earshot, Luke turned to me and asked, “Did I upset you?” 

I shook my head, unable to hide my smile. “Not at all.” 

Luke smiled back. His knuckles were red with Miranda’s blood. This would not be the first time that his knuckles were stained with someone else’s blood on my behalf. The other Campers quickly learned to hold their tongues around us, and especially around Luke. They could think about my terrible survival odds all they wanted but now I didn’t have to hear about it. That made all of this a little bit better. 

Beckendorf beckoned me to the forges. “I’ve got something for you, Percy,” he said. He held the door open for me. 

Inside the forge, it was swelteringly hot. I began to sweat immediately. There also wasn’t a lot of room for my crutches; everything was narrow and close together and there was stuff everywhere. 

Beckendorf gestured to an empty space on a wooden table. “Park yourself there.”

I set my crutches against the table then hopped onto it using my arms. The wood was uncomfortably warm and covered in black marks and scratches. I watched Beckendorf move around his workspace. 

Beckendorf returned shortly, carrying something wrapped in a filthy cloth. He set it beside me. “Luke asked me to make this for you,” he explained as he unwrapped it. 

It was a metal, celestial bronze foot. I gasped in surprise. “That’s for me?” I had no idea how prosthetics worked but the metal foot might just give me a chance at life outside of Camp. Heck, it would probably stop everyone from looking at me like they expected me to drop dead at any second. “You made this for me?” If it wasn’t so hot in the forge, I probably would have started crying. 

Beckendorf nodded. “Michael will help you get used to it but let’s see if it fits first.” 

I rolled up my pant leg with shaking hands. Walking on my own would be the best…the best thing ever. 

Beckendorf fitted the prosthetic over my stump. He explained how it stayed on - a combination of magic and physics - and stood back to admire his work. He compared both of my feet. “You can probably fit it into a shoe, if you want to.” 

I hadn’t even thought that far ahead. I would go barefoot for the rest of my life if it meant that I could walk unassisted. “Is it waterproof?”

Beckendorf nodded. “Be careful about fire and lava cause that’ll melt the metal.” 

You’d think that I could easily avoid those things but we have a climbing wall with lava so it was a valid thing to say. I nodded, eager to jump down and try out the foot. 

Beckendorf put a large hand on my chest to stop me. “Hold your horses, cowboy. The forge isn’t the place for you to practice walking. I just wanted to make sure it fits before I send you off to Michael.” 

Disappointment hit swift and hard. I pouted. Beckendorf was right, of course, even with two working feet there was a lot to hurt myself on. I was just so eager. “Can I see him now?” 

Beckendorf smiled and nodded. He took the foot off and rewrapped it. Then he put it in a satchel and slung that over my shoulder. 

I eased off the table and put the crutches back on. “Thanks, Beckendorf. I… You don’t know how much this means to me.” I could feel the tears building up. 

Beckendorf’s smile grew. He waved me out. 

I hurried as fast as I could to the Apollo cabin. 

Michael knew a lot about physical therapy and learning how to walk with a prosthetic. When I asked him about it, he grinned. “Dude, I’ve got access to the internet.” At the dubious look I gave him, Michael held up a finger. “And I’m a child of Apollo. I might not _like_ healing, but I know a thing or two.” 

He made me do exercises for an hour. It was more exhausting than I thought it would be. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll go through it again.” 

“Do I have to do this every day?” I asked as I picked up my crutches. 

“Yes. You want to get rid of those, right?” Michael gestured to the crutches.

I really did. They hurt my armpits. I nodded. 

“Percy,” Michael said, tone changing to something more serious. “This isn’t like drinking nectar and having everything magically get better in seconds. It’s going to take work and different factors are at play.” 

I stood, head tilted, wondering what he meant. “Like what?” 

Michael pointed to my metal foot. “That might not be the best design to improve your mobility. Or you might want to have more than one option, during times you want to be more active. I’ve been looking into it, and mortals get along fine with one foot all the time but they have different prosthetics for different things.” He flashed me a smile. “Just don’t get discouraged, okay?” 

“Okay,” I said and left. He probably didn’t know how much the words meant to me. So far everyone except for Luke thought that my lack of foot would get me killed. Michael was the second person who thought that I actually had a chance. 

I sat in the driver’s seat of one of the delivery vans that the Camp used to ship out strawberries, door open and radio turned to an alt rock station. My shirt was in the passenger seat, discarded an hour ago because today was particularly hot and humid. 

Luke was on a dolly beneath the front of the van, working on the engine or something. I wasn’t sure; cars weren’t my thing. I heard the wheels against concrete and then Luke popped into view. He walked around to the driver’s side and lifted both arms, leaning against the door and the frame. There was black grease streaked across his cheek and hands. His tank top clung to his torso with sweat. His jeans rode low on his hips. The scents of hot candle wax and leather were stronger than ever. “Alright, turn her on.” 

Luke always looked like a model, but when he was dirty like this, I thought he looked stunning. My face grew even warmer as butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered and then rumbled to life. “You did it,” I said with a grin. 

Luke smiled a small, relieved sort of smile. “There anything to drink in there?” 

I reached for my glass of blue lemonade out of the cupholder. The straw swirled around, the ice cubes clinked. “It’s lemonade,” I said before Luke could ask. His hands were greasy, so I held the straw still for him and raised the glass. 

Luke took a drink. He sighed after. “Ahh...maybe there's something to all that blue dye you like so much.” His blue eyes met mine. They were such a compelling shade of blue, so magnetic. 

I wanted very much to touch him...and it confused me. But it was a strong desire. I scooped up my discarded shirt and used a corner to wipe the grease from his cheek. “I have good taste.” I was talking about more than just the drink. 

A shadow seemed to cross Luke’s eyes before the mischief returned to them. “Oh, yeah?” He grinned at me and leaned a little further into the van. 

I wanted to be close to him. It wasn’t a new feeling but the strength of that want surprised and kind of scared me. I couldn’t help but lean closer, face tilted up to his. Even as I tried to satisfy the urge to be close to him, I wrung my hands in the t-shirt nervously. My heart pounded like a drum.

Luke reached into the van and took the key out of the ignition. He had to lean over me to do it, almost touching me. 

My skin lit up where we almost but didn’t touch. The smell of him was stronger in the enclosed space of the van, when he was only inches away from me. I’ve always liked how Luke smelled, no matter if he just got out of the shower or if he’d spent hours training. Now, the scent of him combined with his closeness made my hands tremble. 

His eyes met mine and he seemed to make some sort of decision. I wasn’t entirely sure that it was in my favor. Luke straightened, pocketing the van’s keys. He said, “Let’s go for a swim.” 

I covered up my disappointment as best I could. It was stupid; I didn’t even really know what I wanted from him. All I knew was that it was... _more._ “The naiads will be mad at you,” I said, gesturing to the grease. They didn’t like pollutants in their water. 

Luke shrugged. “They’re used to it by now.” He helped me out of the van even though I didn’t need it. His hands were hot against my skin and set my nerves on fire. 

I wanted Luke to touch me forever. 

By the end of the summer, I was feeling better than I had before. 

Michael and I did physical therapy every day. I could feel the changes in myself, slow as they were. Now I got to walk with a cane instead of the crutches. 

Silena and I rode the pegasi every day. Now that I had one hand free, I could help her take care of them too. I fessed up to being able to understand the pegasi and after that, acted as a translator so that she knew what they were saying when they spoke to her. Silena was pleased to find out that the pegasi liked her as much as she liked them. 

Chiron of all people took up the mantle of teaching me ancient Greek. I’m not sure who put him up to it - probably Luke - but Annabeth was no longer in charge of my education. I was relieved. I liked Chiron and having him as a teacher was pretty cool. He no longer looked at me like I was something to be pitied. Now he looked tentatively hopeful when his gaze landed on me. It did a lot more for my self confidence than I thought possible. 

Beckendorf and I didn’t hang out every day, but it was a near thing. At Michael’s suggestion, he was trying out different types of prosthetics for me. Though he was the engineer and the bronzesmith, I tossed a few ideas at him too and he always gave them careful consideration. 

But Luke was the one that I enjoyed being with the most. Most of the time, I tagged along with him on his errands and chores. Sometimes helping, sometimes just to be with him. When I wasn’t with him, Luke usually found me. Knowing that Luke liked to hang out with an uncool kid like me really made me happy. 

Life was looking up. 

Except for one thing. The end of the summer was drawing near and I needed to decide if I was going to go home or stay at Camp Half-Blood. Time dwindled away without me making a concrete decision. The night before the last day of summer, I stayed up and really thought about what I was going to do. By the time the sun rose, I knew my answer. 

I found Luke at the sword fighting arena, wailing on some dummies. The sword he carried was strange. “What’s that?” I asked.

Luke looked at the sword and then at me. He tossed the sword to the dirt, careless and deliberate. “Nothing.” Then he walked toward me and he didn't stop until he was right in front of me. Luke’s arms came around my shoulders as he crushed me to his chest in a hug that knocked the air out of my lungs. 

He smelled like clean sweat and hot candle wax and something that made me think _male._ It should be gross - I mean my face was right next to his armpit and his scent was so strong I could taste him - but it wasn’t at all. Luke’s scent caused a wave of warmth in my abdomen that washed down between my hips. 

“Let’s get some privacy in the woods,” Luke said even though we were alone. “I’ll buy the drinks.” 

“Okay,” I agreed, hoping Luke didn’t see how red my face was. I followed Luke into the woods. My new foot still required me to use a cane because I wasn’t used to it. 

Luke slowed his pace to match mine. It was one of those things he did without making a big deal out of it, which was really cool. 

“What are we doing?” I asked. 

Luke shrugged. He looked uncomfortable. “I thought. I mean it’s the last day of Camp and you aren’t staying, I thought we could hang out a bit.”

“I…” I bit my lip. “Actually I think I’m gonna stay.” I’d been thinking about it for a long time and this felt like the best thing I could do. If the whole camp thought that I was going to die because of my missing foot, then mom probably would too. And I couldn’t let her wait for me to die, wondering every day if it would be the last day she saw me. Besides, I attracted monsters and if she got hurt because of me - again - I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. 

Luke didn’t react to my news. He seemed distant, worried about something. 

We stopped by the stream. Luke pulled two cans of coke from his duffel bag. They were still cold. 

I sat down on a rock and Luke sat beside me. He handed me one of the cans. 

Luke drank his pretty fast. I think he wanted to tell me something but was buying his time. After a long time, Luke said, “I’m the lightning thief.” 

I almost spit my coke out. As it was, it went down hard. I gasped in air. My nose burned. “What?!” 

“I stole the bolt.” 

“Luke… I don’t understand.” My whole world was shifting, the ground tilting beneath my feet. I wanted it to be a lie. 

Luke looked down at the coke in his hands. He swallowed. “I work for Kronos.” 

The air dropped twenty degrees. I shivered. “W-why are you telling me this?” I expected the worst. 

“Because...because I don’t want to work for him anymore.” Well, that wasn’t so bad. We could work with that. Luke glanced at me, then away. “He’s been making me do things I don’t want to do. Mostly to you.”

It took a few seconds for that to sink in. “You summoned the Hellhound.”

“We had to make Chiron think the camp wasn’t safe for you so he’d send you on the quest.” This was said in a dull voice, like Luke had said it many times before to himself and the words no longer held any meaning. 

“It already isn’t safe for me! It isn’t safe for anyone!” I hissed back. “Clarisse tried to kill me!” My heart skipped a beat as I remembered. If she ever came after me again, I’d be dead for sure. But that didn’t feel as important as finding out what exactly Luke had done. 

Luke nodded. He didn’t look surprised. “Hindsight is 20/20, Percy.” 

What else? Luke had said things, plural. “The shoes,” I whispered. My stomach twisted. Realization hit me in the face like cold water. “You tried to kill me -”

“No!” Luke cut in. 

“You’re the reason -”

“Percy, please -”

“My foot was cut off. How could you -”

“Let me explain-”

“Do that to Annabeth?” 

“It isn’t like that-”

“To me!?”

“You weren’t supposed to die-”

“How could you do this to me?!” 

“Kronos said he could convince you-”

“I thought you were my friend!” 

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this -”

“I trusted you!” I surged to my feet, almost over balancing, grabbed my cane and went as quickly as I could back to Camp. Behind me, I heard Luke rise and his footsteps come toward me. I acted without thinking, bringing a wave of water from the stream and dumping it on his head. 

Luke stood there, frozen in place and soaking wet. His blue eyes were wide and sad and begged me not to go. Whatever he saw on my face made him recoil as though I’d slapped him. 

My voice wouldn’t work. Even if it did, I didn’t know what to say to convey how hurt I was at this betrayal. I went back to Camp, limping as quickly as I could. My heart was broken in two. I didn’t know what to do. Where should I go? There was nowhere to go that Luke couldn’t find me so I went to my cabin. I locked myself in and sat against the door and cried for a long, long time. 

Luke’s betrayal hurt so much that I refused to come out of my cabin. I kept the door locked and shoved one of the spare beds against it. There was enough stolen junk food in here that I wouldn’t starve for a few days. 

Michael came to look for me first. He tried the door, found it locked, and shouted, “Percy, are you coming for physical therapy?” 

I didn’t respond. 

He eventually went away. Only to be replaced by Beckendorf. “Percy, Michael’s worried about you. Is it your foot? Are you okay in there?” 

His voice sounded so deep and caring that I felt really bad about ignoring him. But I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened. I was still processing it myself. So I kept quiet. 

Silena was next. She actually knocked on my door first. “Percy, sweetheart,” that was the nickname mom used for me. “why don’t you come for a ride with me? You don’t have to tell me what happened. We don’t have to talk at all, if you don’t want to.” 

It was tempting. Riding the pegasi with Silena was one of the only things that really brought me joy. “Please leave me alone,” I said. 

“Luke keeps asking us to check on you,” Silena said through the door. “I think that he’s done something stupid. Should I go beat him up for you?” 

I hugged my knees to my chest. Tears ran down my cheeks. My voice was gone again. Even if I knew what to say, I couldn’t have said anything. 

“Sweetheart, Luke isn’t the only one who cares about you, okay? Me, and Charlie, and Michael all love you too, alright? We miss you, sweetheart. So when you feel like coming out again, we’ll be here for you.” Her footsteps retreated. 

A sob broke. I cried almost as hard as after finding out about Luke’s betrayal. 

They tried a few more times to coax me out. Even Chiron came once. It wasn’t until the Stoll brothers tried to get in that I shoved one of the beds in front of the door so that it wouldn’t swing open. I sat on the bed, locking the door every time they managed to unlock it. I didn’t know how they were doing it, but assumed it was a Hermes power. 

A full day passed before I heard Luke’s voice on the other side of the door. “Percy, I’m sorry.”

“Go away!” I screamed. The tears started again. How could he stand to act like my friend when all this time, he’d tried to kill me? I trusted him, I looked up to him, I cared about him and his opinions. I did my best for him. And all this time. All this time he’s been thinking of how to kill me. He’s been working with the enemy. 

“Please let me in so we can talk.” 

“I hate you!” I lied because I loved him so much and he hurt me so much. The tears were obvious in my voice. 

“Jeez, Luke, what did you do to him?” A voice asked. I recognized it as one of the Stoll brothers. I couldn’t tell which one though. 

The other one added, “That won’t work. He’s got the door barricaded.” 

“He can’t spend the rest of his life in there. I’ll get him out if I’ve got to tear this cabin down brick by brick,” came Luke’s reply. There was silence for a few minutes. Then I heard a sound, a familiar whirring sort of sound. 

It wasn’t until my door lurched that I realized Luke was taking out the hinge screws. 

I scrambled off my bed and uncapped Riptide. Neglecting to do my physical therapy hadn’t helped with my balance, so as much as I hated to do it, I backed myself against a wall. And I waited. 

It felt like simultaneously no time and all of time for Luke to get my door off its hinges. How many other campers locked themselves in the cabins that he was so good at this? “Get out of here. And don’t ruin that door,” Luke snapped at his brothers. 

I spared a moment to worry about the fate of my door in the hands of the Stolls, but only a moment. 

Luke climbed over the bed and stood just on the other side. He appraised me for a long few minutes. 

My heart jackhammered in my chest. My hands were cold with adrenaline but I gripped Riptide tightly. 

“When I went on my quest,” Luke began. “I had two other demigods with me and three pegasi. My friends and the pegasi died terrible, agonizing deaths trying to save me so that I could complete my quest. In the end, I couldn’t even hold onto the apple long enough to get it to Camp and my quest was marked as a failure. And so was I.” Luke lifted the hem of his shirt and showed off the scars.

I couldn’t breathe. It was like the air was knocked out of my lungs. There were five huge, jagged scars stretched across Luke’s torso. I couldn’t tear my eyes from them. Not until Luke let his shirt drop again. 

“When I got back and Chiron fixed me, they gave me a laurel wreath and that was that. No more talking about it. Didn’t even get any glory. Two demigods dead, three pegasi dead, scars that hurt every day, and all they could say was ‘Okay, rides over. Have a nice life.’” Luke paused, collecting his thoughts. “And I was so angry. Not just about how bad my quest went, but how the others are treated here at Camp.” He laughed but it was a nasty sound. “I mean, you’ve seen cabin eleven. And there have been so many others. I never imagined I’d attend so many funerals.” Luke fell silent, remembering. 

His story was sad but I didn’t get what it had to do with him trying to kill me. “And?” I promoted, my voice harsh. 

Luke’s attention turned outward again, to me. “And Kronos showed up in my dreams. He’s...persuasive.” 

“He ate his children,” I pointed out. 

Luke shrugged. “Zeus ate one of his pregnant wives. That’s how Athena was born.” He sighed. “I don’t really trust him, Percy, no matter how persuasive he is. But if I don’t have real power on my side, then I can’t fix our situation. The gods need us more than we need them, but alone, our powers are weak. We’re insignificant. Even yours are nothing compared to your father’s.” 

I struggled to wrap my mind around it. I just didn’t see how Kronos was the right choice. And I didn’t see why Kronos wanted me dead. “I don’t care about any of that,” I said honestly. “All this time you were just pretending to be my friend. You’re the one who betrayed me! You’re who the prophecy was talking about! You tried to kill me.”

Luke shook his head. “The Hellhound wasn’t going to kill you. There’s a reason that it showed up in a crowd. Someone would kill it before it _really_ hurt you. All it had to do was attack you so that Chiron would think Hades was after you.” 

There was a lot to unpack there and I didn’t have the capacity right now. There was more information needed. “And the shoes?” 

A pained expression crossed Luke’s face. He looked down, at my foot made of flesh and the one made of metal. “It was supposed to be two birds with one stone. The bolt would be delivered and Kronos would be able to persuade you to join our side. We didn’t expect Annabeth to fucking cut off your foot.” The last bit was said with a somewhat hysterical laugh. 

I realized that I had never heard Luke cuss before. It was unsettling. 

Luke’s expression turned pleading. He held out his hands, palms toward me. “Percy, I’m sorry. I don’t want you dead and I don’t want you hurt. This was never what I wanted. You...you don’t have to forgive me. But please don’t hide in here. You’re worrying everyone else.” 

“Am I worrying you?” I asked quietly. 

“Yes,” Luke admitted. “But I’m not about to ask you to do something to make me more comfortable.” 

I thought about it. “I’ll come out and play my part,” I said. “But I don’t want you. Stay away from me. Don’t talk to me.” 

The hurt on Luke’s face made me feel smug. He deserved it after what he did to me. If it wasn’t for him and Kronos, I would have two good feet...and a best friend. “Okay,” he said softly. Then Luke left. 

I pushed the bed back to its proper place now that I wasn’t hiding and there wasn’t a door to bar shut. I groaned. Now I had to hunt down my door. 

As much as I wanted to forgive Luke and go back to being friends, I couldn’t. I missed him like a missing limb - and I knew what that felt like - but my real missing limb stopped me from trying to reconcile with him. 

Spending the winter together, only a dozen of us Campers left, was its own special agony. Luke was right there, just as alone as I was. Because I’d realized that Luke could ask people for favors - Silena’s pegasus riding lessons, Beckendorf making my foot, Michael doing physical therapy with me - but they weren’t his friends. Neither of us had friends. We should have been perfect together. We would have been perfect together.

Instead we went the whole winter without speaking. I was the one who asked for him to stay away and not talk to me, but it still hurt that he was so willing to do it. Didn’t he care about me at all? Was the whole summer a lie? 

No one could needle out the sudden change between us. It must have been confusing from the outside. I knew that I should tell someone that Luke was working for Kronos but I was the only one hurt by it and somehow I didn’t think Luke was still under Kronos’ thumb. There was no proof. It was just a feeling. 

My love for Luke had grown thorns and I spent all winter with an ache in my chest. 

Summer was a little easier with a few hundred people to distract me from Luke. 

Beckendorf made me a new foot because I’d grown over the winter. Michael was impressed with my mobility. Silena and I took long rides together. No one looked at me like I was going to die. Some of the new kids even seemed relieved to see someone like me, an imperfect demigod. 

Then one day a few weeks into summer, I woke up and sensed that something was wrong. The feeling of discontent followed me around all day, dogging my steps. I just couldn’t figure out what it was that felt so wrong. 

With all of the new and returning Campers, it took me a few days to realize that I hadn’t seen Luke in a long time. I searched the entire Camp for him but by late afternoon, I had to face the facts. Luke was gone. 

He left me. 

“Where’s Luke?” I asked Silena. I couldn't believe that Luke left me. 

The look Silena gave me was pitying. She didn’t know the details about what happened between me and Luke, but she knew that _something_ did and our relationship hasn’t been the same since. “He left, sweetheart.” 

“Where did he go?” I asked, trying to keep the urgency from my voice. I didn’t succeed. Even to my own ears, I sounded panicked. He couldn’t just leave me. 

Silena shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s lived at Camp for longer than I’ve been here. I don’t think he’s got anywhere else to go.” 

He left me. 

“I have to find him!” I cried. 

_“I’ll help you, my lord,”_ said the stallion pegasus that I normally rode. My pegasus, as I and everyone else had come to think of him. He was already laying down by the time I got into the stall. 

I swung my leg over his back, dropped the cane that I still used to walk. “I’m going to find him, Silena.” 

Silena gave me a puzzled look. “I won’t stop you,” she said as she opened the stable doors wider. “Give him my love, Percy.” 

I was going to give him something. 

We raced out of the stables and launched into the sky. I had no idea where Luke had gone. He had a few days head start. 

_“Where are we going?”_

I wasn’t sure. My instincts said west. I relayed the order to the stallion and we headed that way. We followed the road for a while, a black snake cutting through the woods. I directed the pegasus stallion according to my instincts. For all I knew, we could have been going in the wrong direction. But I didn’t have anything else to work with. 

It was sunset before we found him walking along the side of the road. “There!” I said. We dropped out of the sky in front of Luke. One ton of pegasus and angry demigod. 

It was enough to startle anyone. Luke’s eyes widened. “Percy?” He looked tired. A sleeping bag was strapped to his backpack. Was he sleeping on the road? 

I wished I could hug him. Or slap him. I wanted to do both in equal measure. “Where do you think you’re going?” 

Luke’s expression was more neutral than I’d ever seen it before. It was enough to make me doubt myself, make me wonder if it was worth it going after him. “I thought it would be better if I left.” 

“If I don’t get to run away from my problems neither do you,” I spat back. 

Luke’s eyes flicked downward for the briefest of glances. He met my eyes. 

I slid off of the stallion’s back. 

Luke was at my side in a second, hands at my waist. Then he realized what he was doing and flinched back, releasing me like I’d burned him. 

I reached for him, grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt, and yanked him back only because he wasn’t expecting it. “You...” I struggled to find the words. “You aren’t allowed to leave me.” 

Luke made a noise of surprise. “I thought you wanted me to stay away and never talk to you again.” He didn’t pull free of my grip but he was leaning back like he wanted to. 

“I’m allowed to be angry with you for ruining my life and probably shortening it even more,” I snarled. My anger hadn’t gone anywhere and now it reared its head because I was scared of losing Luke. “You hurt me...so much I don’t even have words for it.” I clutched my chest, empathizing that it was more emotional than physical. “But I...I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want you out of my life. I need you, godsdamnit, Luke.” 

Luke studied me for a long time, the debate in his head almost something I could hear. I knew when I won because Luke’s shoulders dropped. He sighed, sounding as tired as he looked. “Are you sure?” 

“Are you going to hurt me again?” I asked, knowing that he could lie to me if he wanted. I liked to think that I would know, but I had no suspicions about his involvement with Kronos and the shoes. 

Luke didn’t answer right away. He turned his head, looked into the woods. “I can’t promise that. I won’t promise that.” Just as my heart was breaking again, Luke continued, “But I’m done with Kronos and I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe and happy and healthy.” 

I considered carefully, searching his words and his body for any signs of deception. After spending so much time with Luke, I could tell when he was lying. I stuck out my hand. “Deal.”

Luke clasped his hand with mine. “Deal.” He looked like he wanted something and he was slow to let go of my hand. Did he miss touching me as much as I missed touching him? 

I pulled Luke to me and wrapped my arms around him. I was still small enough that my head rested on his chest. His heart thumped against my ear. 

Luke hesitated, then wrapped his arms around me. He rested his cheek against the top of my head. After a moment, he relaxed. 

“You’re a jerk,” I told him. 

“I know,” Luke agreed. 

“Do better.” 

“I will.” 

“Let’s go home.” 

“Okay.”

The stallion laid down for me to climb on. I got on and waited for Luke. 

Luke’s reluctance was written into every line of his body. As far as I knew, he hadn’t gotten on a pegasus since his quest. But after his initial hesitation, Luke swung a leg over the stallion. He sat behind me, body pressed warm against mine, arms wrapped around my waist. 

As we flew across the sky, the sun setting behind us, I said to Luke, “Don’t leave me again.” 

Luke’s breath was hot against my ear when he said, “Never again, Percy.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's lukercy if you squint but I'm hesitant to tag it as such since they're not in a romantic or sexual relationship.


End file.
